I was reading a short tale written by a friend of a friend as a comment on one of my friend’s threads. If you don’t know what I’m talking about here, it’s obvious you aren’t Facebook savvy and you probably aren’t real. Anyway, my friend speaks politics often, but just as often he speaks music. He speaks eloquently on both subjects and attracts often superb readers and responders. I read his threads.

My friend’s friend told of a concert he attended years ago with one of the super bands of his time, opened up by another less well-known band. The openers blew the headliner off the stage. I’ve been at that deal too. Different bands, different place.

I was at the Warehouse in New Orleans. It was the go-to place for rock concerts for the Gulf Coast, and I went often. We went to see Alvin Lee; you know, Ten Years After’s guitar virtuoso and frontman. At that time, every rocker kid’s favorite movie of all time was the Woodstock documentary. It played at our drive-in all the time it seems, and we went all the time, kids and beer in the trunk. And Alvin Lee was the absolute star in that movie for me. His rendition of Goin’ Home is the classic rock n roll song of that age for me and the closeups of him playing his guitar were like a shot of heaven for me. I knew every note by heart. I could picture in my mind his face if I listened to the track on my stereo. I went to see him for sure.

Opening the show was Edgar Winter and White Trash. I knew who they were, everyone knew Johnny Winter, but Edgar was a just coming into his own. They opened and absolutely blew the place up. Rick Derringer was freakin’ great, Edgar killed it on keys and horns, and the whole band was just damned good. They were tight and after about four tunes Edgar announced a special guest. His brother Johnny came out to a resounding cheer from all the kids that lasted well into the song they started with. They did Jumpin’ Jack Flash later and believe it or no it was better, longer, louder, and flashier with the twin guitars than the live recording of Johnny Winter Live Album. The rest of their set matches and surpasses most any performance I’ve ever seen. Two of the best guitar slingers of all time on stage for an hour, and the whole time I’m thinking how far out this concert was. I had already seen guitar antics that could never be topped, yet soon the hero himself, Alvin Lee, would be on that stage. How could I possibly ever top that?

White Trash did three or four encores, each better, louder, and more fantastic than the last. The crowd went wild! (Cliche, but nothing else worked). And for a long time. Ten Years After started getting on stage and set up and the chatter from the crowd was all about White Trash. But when Lee stepped to the mic we were all ready for the best part of the night.

They were lackluster, playing tunes they hadn’t released yet, definitely none of them were rock n roll hits. And they just seemed dull. There were no screaming guitar solos and it was actually boring. And Alvin Lee never said a word to the crowd, never acknowledged White Trash, and was basically an aloof asshole on stage. The crowd started yelling for them to play Goin’ Home after every single song they did and that lasted for however long they played which was way too long. People stayed because they knew there was no way they would not play Goin’ Home. But, they didn’t. And they didn’t even come back and do an encore, though everyone thought for sure they would.

I got a really bad taste in my mouth for Alvin Lee and was never really a fan again. I heard his music, like Cricklewood Green. My cousin loved that record and I heard it on his stereo often. The music wasn’t my favorite by any means, but it wasn’t bad, but I always felt like I should hate it for the slight he foisted on me when I drove ninety miles to see him that time.

I go back and watch the Woodstock performance on Youtube occasionally. It’s not the same for me now. It seems contrived and the guitar playing is nowhere near as good as I thought it was. Still, it was an electrifying performance and is one of the jewels of the era for me. I’d as soon listen to Town Mountain now.